Just what is the difference between sensing and perceiving? In this episode, Hank takes us on a journey through the brain to better explain these and other concepts.
This four minute animated video presents the core story of brain development. Learn how childhood experiences can affect our brains and how we sometimes need our brains to function like 'air traffic control'.
This site contains articles reflecting current research on issues related to psychology. These articles either link to original research or references.
Have you ever wondered why teenagers truly seem like another species? Turns out their brains are actually functioning in a completely different way during this stage of development!
The human brain is complex and awe-inspiring, so of course we have been trying to figure out how to control it. From electricity to light, here are some of the ways we have attempted to command our wrinkly thinkers.
Dreams can be scary, mystifying, and sometimes unnatural feeling experiences, but there's plenty about them that are perfectly ordinary. Here's a compilation of some things we know about dreams.
The human brain is visibly split into a left and right side and there is a myth that the left side controls logic and the right side controls creativity. How did this idea come about, and what does it get wrong?
Imagine, for a second, a duck teaching a French class. A dolphin balancing a pineapple. How does your brain produce an image of something you’ve never seen? Related Lesson
Often people make decisions that are not “rational” from a purely economical point of view — meaning that they don’t necessarily lead to the best result. Why is that? Are we just bad at dealing with numbers and odds? Or is there a psychological mechanism behind it? Related Lesson
Remember that guy from 300? What was his name? ARG!!! It turns out our brains make and recall memories in different ways. Let's talk about the way we do it
The Queensland Brain Institute has a collection of short articles about memory, the types of memory, how memories form, how they are stored, and how they are affected by age.
A memory isn’t stored in your brain in a neat little package, but is instead spread across a pattern of cells in different regions. What's more, understanding this process could open the door to better treatments for conditions like Alzheimer’s or PTSD.
If you're a Pokémon fan watching a Pokemon move, a bit of your brain might light up that won’t in people who haven't played. Find out why that's important to understanding how our brains works
You spend weeks studying for an important test. When you’re asked to define ataraxia. You know you’ve seen the word before, but your mind goes blank. What just happened?
Think back to a really vivid memory. Got it? Now try to remember what you had for lunch three weeks ago. That second memory probably isn’t as strong—but why not? Related Lesson
The traditional model of our mental function is that first our senses provide data to our brain, which then translates those senses into the appropriate mental phenomena. But what if that process is actually occurring simultaneously? Related Lesson
Would you open an umbrella indoors? Whether or not you believe in them, you’re probably familiar with a few of these superstitions. But where did they come from? Related Lesson
In the 3rd millennium BCE, Mesopotamian kings recorded and interpreted their dreams on wax tablets. While we still don’t have any definitive answers, today we have some theories. Related Lesson
Nostalgia was once considered an illness confined to specific groups of people. Today, people all over the world report experiencing and enjoying nostalgia. But how does nostalgia work? And is it healthy? Related Lesson
